


Troy in Wonderland

by blithers



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alice in Wonderland, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 19:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3084032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/pseuds/blithers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Troy probably should have figured out that something was off when the Dean had rushed by him in a white suit, wearing a rakishly off-kilter pair of bunny ears and a cotton tail stuck to the coat tails, glancing at a pocket watch and muttering to himself about being late for an appointment.</p><p>The Dean <em>never</em> had appointments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Troy in Wonderland

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt from busycybering, "Troy goes to Wonderland to get The Best Gift Ever for Annie. He gets lost", from the M/M fic battle a couple years ago. Originally posted [here](http://milady-milord.livejournal.com/837306.html?thread=11424698#t11424698).

Troy probably should have figured out that something was off when the Dean had rushed by him in a white suit, wearing a rakishly off-kilter pair of bunny ears and a cotton tail stuck to the coat tails, glancing at a pocket watch and muttering to himself about being late for an appointment.

The Dean _never_ had appointments.

That should have been his first clue.

"Dean?" he asks, running to catch him as the wisp of his white suit coat disappears around the corner ahead of him. The Dean's good with clothes and stuff, right? "Dean? Hey, I was wondering if you could help me with a birthday present for An--"

He doesn't even see the hole until it's too late.

\--

Falling is terrifying. He screams a little to get it out of his system at the beginning and attempts a valiant effort at paddling himself in the up direction before finally settling on floating gently downward angled like Superman, breaking it up with some awesome Spiderman-ing from side to side. He tries to Thor for a while, but without a giant god-forged hammer dragging him along the position really loses most of the impact.

He eventually nabs a pillow from one of the passing shelves as he falls, and takes an emergency panic nap. When he wakes up, he's curled up on solid ground underneath a round wooden table in the middle of a large, echoing hall, and there's a small bottle on the floor next to him with a note tied around the neck that says DRINK ME.

Like that's a dare he isn't going to take.

\---

Shrinking, it turns out, feels mildly ticklish and makes his whole body go tingly numb, kind of like how his mouth feels after eating ice cream too fast.

He's strolling through a garden marveling at how enormously giant everything around him is when he spots Britta, sitting on a leaf by herself, smoking and sitting quietly.

"Britta?"

Britta frowns at him, and takes a deep puff of the enormous hookah she has spread out on the leaf with her.

"What..."

"My cat has glaucoma," she blurts out.

"...are you doing all miniaturized and hanging out on a leaf?"

"Oh." She waves a hand vaguely and grandiosely around her leaf. "This is a _life_ experience."

Troy nods. "Cool. So, hey, Britta. You're a girl, right..."

She narrows her eyes. "I'll allow it."

"...so you must have some idea of what I could get Annie for her birthday."

Britta exhales thoughtfully, and the smoke rings form small diminishing halos above her head. "I think," she says, "that you know what birthday present you should give Annie. The answer is inside you."

"My _organs_?" he asks, horrified.

"What? No. The answer," she pauses significantly, "is in your heart."

He groans. "Worst advice _ever_. And this is coming from a guy who once took hookup advice from Abed when he was in the middle of watching Die Hard 2: Die Harder."

"Whatever. Here, take some of this." She shoves a mass of something crumbly and dark and vaguely edible looking into his hands. "It's organic, vegan, gluten free, and one hundred percent fair trade. Also, if you take a bite it'll make you bigger again or something."

He stares at the thing and reassures himself that all those words she had just said probably meant what he was holding was edible. "Thanks."

Britta takes another hit off the hookah and stares contentedly off into the distance.

\---

The road he's on winds its way though a forest, which quickly and predictably turns dark and creepy. Troy takes another bite of Britta's health loaf thing to make sure he's larger than anything he might meet in the woods.

Even so, it still freaks him out when Pierce materializes in the tree above him, smile first, grinning manically with far more teeth than Troy is pretty sure he normally has.

"Hey," he says when Pierce has finished showing up in one place. "Do you know how I can get out of here?"

"We're all mad here," Pierce exclaims gleefully, and fades out in reverse, leaving his grin as the last thing to disappear.

"That doesn't answer my question AT ALL," Troy yells, and stomps further on down the road.

\---

When he finally finds his way out of the woods, there's a large clearing with a table in the middle of it and a lot of fussy granny-looking china stacked up on it. Abed is wearing a large top hat and seated at the head of the table, sipping dispassionately from a teacup. Magnitude is seated to the left of him, clad in a bow tie, and Garrett is asleep between them with his face pressed flat into the tablecloth.

"Have some tea," Abed says to him, and nods at the seat to the right of him, a heavy, claw-footed throne.

"Thanks, man." Troy sinks into the seat gratefully, and takes a sip of the drink before spitting it right back out again. "Oh my god, what is that, _dead tree leaves_?"

"Change places!" Abed yells, and Troy finds himself pushed sideways out of his chair onto a rather rickety wooden stool one seat over.

"Pop pop!" says Magnitude, and digs into a treacle tart now in front of him.

"Garret seems to have fallen asleep again," Abed observes, and pours a bit of tea on Garret's nose.

Garrett's head snaps up. "I'm SLEEPING," he shrieks, and waves his arms before putting his head back down on the table and falling asleep again with a weirdly panicked-sounding snore.

"Okay, so worst party ever," Troy says. "Got it."

"I had a riddle for you," says Abed. "How is the DARSIT like a writing desk?"

Troy frowns. "Is that a trick question?"

"Probably," Abed says with a shrug.

"Look, I need your help. What are you getting Annie for her birthday?"

"CHANGE PLACES!"

Troy ends up in a metal folding chair that keeps trying to close around him this time. Abed takes another calm sip of tea and says, "You need to see the queen."

"Say what?"

"The Red Queen," Abed repeats calmly, and Troy can hear the capitalization this time. "You need to see the Red Queen. She'll have your answer."

\--- 

"Off with their heads!" Shirley screams, before turning with an entirely different expression to Troy and patting his hand gently. "Don't worry, sweetie. That doesn't mean you."

Troy swallows hard and carefully lines up another shot with his flamingo, tucking its legs under his arm and awkwardly holding onto the body.

Jeff saunters up to him, twirling his own flamingo and adjusting his crown made of alternating red hearts casually. "Don't worry," he whispers. "As long as you didn't eat the Queen's tarts, you're good. Or talk about the fact that all the roses are really white and only painted red."

Shirley pops up again out of nowhere. "What's that about my tarts? Was it you? Was it you? OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"

"Shh, no. Take it easy, babe," Jeff says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "Nobody ate your tarts."

Pierce's head materializes next to Troy, floating creepily in mid-air. "Actually, I ate her tarts," he says smugly, and winks at Troy.

Shirley's heads snaps up.

"Umm," says Troy guiltily, as Pierce's floating head fades beside him.

"OFF WITH HIS..."

"Head, head, yeah, I get it," Troy says.

"Sorry, kid," says Jeff. "I used to be a lawyer, but even I couldn't get you out of this one."

"Great," Troy mutters. "Abed was so not right about this one."

He still has some of the health food from Britta in his pocket, so he shoves that in his mouth and snaps a rose off a nearby bush in a moment of desperate inspiration, holding on as the flower grows tinier and tinier in his larger and larger hand. Jeff and Shirley are running circles around his ankles now, and a small pack of a playing cards with comical little hands and feet coming out of their sides are attempting to swarm all over him, because that totally makes sense.

He waves them away, and suddenly feels something cool splash on his face.

He wakes up.

\---

"Troy? Troy? Are you okay?" The Dean is wringing his hand and keeps reaching up to nervously adjust the rabbit ears he's wearing. "Oh, Jeff is never going to forgive me if anything happens to you. I _knew_ I shouldn't have let the hole digging class do their final exam on campus."

"I'm..." he pushes himself up to a seating position, and stares at the red rose he still has clutched in his hand. "...I'm fine."

"Oh, thank goodness." The Dean sits down in his white suit at the bottom of the hole with Troy. "I'll have the sign writing class make a sign to warn people about the hole."

"Good idea," he mumbles.

"It's settled then. Now," the Dean stands back up and briskly bats the dust off his suit, "how to get out of this hole. Hello? Is anybody up there?" He turns to Troy again. "Where's a Ladder's graduate when you need one?"

\---

When Troy gets home, Abed is watching 1970s Inspector Spacetime with a large bowl of noodles and Annie is humming cheerfully as she tidies up the kitchen after baking cupcakes for their upcoming study group teenage girl sleepover (pajamas, popcorn, sleeping bag, and mandatory toenail painting included).

"Happy birthday," he says, a little awkwardly, and hands her the rose.

"Oh, Troy! You shouldn't have." She bounces away to the kitchen to fill up the glass bottle that they use as a vase with water. "It's gorgeous."

"It's painted."

"Paint.. you painted the rose for me?" She rubs gently at one of the petals, and her fingertip comes away red with paint. "That's amazing." She places the rose in the water, angling the one rubbed petal toward the wall. "Thank you," she says quietly, and kisses him on the cheek.

He smiles. "Anytime."

From the living room, Abed yells, "CHANGE PLACES!"


End file.
